How many times have you sent someone a long text message, pouring all of your heart and soul into the 160 words that the text box can hold, and had that person reply with “K thx?” Have you ever spent five minutes trying to decipher an email because it had no punctuation, horrible grammar, and even missing letters? Did you ever read a written letter that had a LOL, ROFL, or LMAO accidentally thrown in? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are not alone. For many, what was once a method of typing messages faster has…

The final weekend of August was a big one for America’s favorite pundits. On the Left, stoned slacker liberals rejoiced when Jon Stewart and The Daily Show won their eighth consecutive Emmy Award, while on what denies it is the Right, tightly wound tea partiers flocked to the Lincoln Memorial to hear Glenn Beck speak. More importantly, though, the weekend called into question an increasingly prominent aspect of American politics, forcing us to ask ourselves: how much do we trust pundits? Like most political questions, it’s a tough one to answer. On the one hand, they are obviously not unbiased…

Does form follow function, or are they equally as important? It’s a debate that has been argued over by architects and innovators for years. The most recent manifestation of this clash between form and function is present in the Amazon Kindle, a portable electronic device used to download and read books or magazines that are in digital form. Many people consider the Kindle and other e-book readers to be the future of literature, but it is a future we cannot live in. The so-called “conveniences” of the Kindle are not enough to defeat the sanctity of the traditional book. The…

You’re sitting in history class trying your best not to fall asleep as the teacher lectures on about yet another war. It certainly doesn’t help that you stayed up until 11:00 last night typing up an essay for English. A stranger with an official-looking SMUHSD nametag walks in, examining the homework assignment written on the board before sitting down for the next 40 minutes nodding his head thoughtfully as Mr. /Ms. So-and-So goes through the material for that day, all the while making notes on a clipboard. Later, the stranger asks you, “How do you feeeel about this class?” before…

Times are changing and it is now the 21st century. People go out and meet others, fall in love and get married. However, the tradition of arranged marriages still stays. In India, marriage is a bond between two families and not just two people. The parents would meet with the children and their future in-laws to make the decision for their children. There were often times where the first contact between the engaged would be at their wedding. Nowadays, Indians in America have loosened the restrictions and have taken their children’s opinions into account as well. They let the children…

There is a huge difference between freedom of speech and insulting a whole community of people. Although it’s true in America no one can stop you from stating how you feel or giving out your opinion, there are also boundaries. You can’t take it too far or do something drastic, like burning other people’s belongings, without having to deal with the consequences. Saturday, September eleventh, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attack, was supposed to be the day a group evangelical Christians would burn Korans, which according to them were not meant to insult all Muslims but to insult just…

Every year at the end of senior year a few seniors get devastating news. That news is the shocker of not graduating. How could the administration help these students to graduate? It’s extremely sad that some students won’t be graduating. All the years of hard work and effort ends with nothing. Although there are some students that do want to walk the stage, it is still constantly a battlefield until the day of graduation. Some students don’t care about school and don’t even try, in the other hand some do care and won’t quit until they graduate. Sometimes the issues…

On Friday the 16 The Day Of Silence (DOS) took place. During lunch at the rally, everyone wearing purple wore it to support DOS. For those of you who don’t know what the Day Of Silence is, it is a social protest in which all participating figures don’t speak in order to symbolize the lack of voice that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (LGBT) have in society. There was a big turnout of people who participated on Friday, but it was apparent that some had difficulty keeping the vow of silence. As a participant, I too found the prospect…

It’s that times of the year where students once again break from the daily routine of attending classes and instead take hour-long subject exams known as the STAR test. For some, the test is a complete nuisance. Yet others see it as an essential component to public education. Here are two perspectives. Pro-Victoria Xiao Every year, STAR testing comes along. To may students, it is an ugly beast that rears its head to lower morale and increase stress. However, changing one’s mindset can make the STAR tests a lot more bearable. Just remember two important things: it is a standardized…